There ya go! I've taken the dog outside for what she seemed to think was an important reason. Twice, but then it's warm tonight. It's +14 F with a +4 F windchill. So I only needed a t-shirt on each time.

One of my longtime best friends, his in-laws live in Minnesota. Having visited there a number of times during the summer, he talks about maybe moving there if he ever retires. I would send him a copy of this except he doesn't do email. Drive carefully, and enjoy, W2

It was 25 today here in Oregon where I live. The ice never thawed on the pond in my back yard.

Carol thinks me mad, but I just don't get real cold like a lot of folks do. I don't much care for it, but It just doesn't seem to bother me like it does some.

I wore a t-shirt with a thin, flannel shirt over that unbottoned all the way down and sleeves rolled up to the elbows.. And I was outside working on odds and ends for at least a couple hours at one stretch.

Just drove my daughter up the street to the bus stop. Sat in the car for 5 minutes waiting for the bus. It's currently 2 degrees. Heat started coming on about the time I pulled back in the driveway. Have to do it again with my son in an hour.

I've never quite understood whether cold is a perception thing or if our bodies actually adapt.

When I was a youngster, my Dad's job moved him around quite a bit. We spent two years in Falmouth, Mass. and then the following year in Buffalo, NY. The year after that we lived in the Los Angeles area. Sometimes there was thin ice on water puddles. I remember my mother fussing at me every morning to wear a jacket when I walked the mile or so to school. Never did wear a jacket that first year. But the second year in L.A., I wore a jacket every morning.

Dick, here in Minnesota it blizzards quite often. Then a cold front normally follows where we cold temperatures that will fall in that -20F to -30 F. Most of the kids in this state walk to school every day in blizzard and sub-zero weather and walk up-hill in both directions with the wolves and black bears chasing them.

Max & Aelene, two lifelong Yoopers, lived by a lake in da Upper peninsula of Michigan. It vas early vinter and da lake had froze over.

Max asked Arlene it she vould valk across the frozen lake to da yeneral store to get him some beer. She asked him for some money but he told her , "Nah, yust put it on our tab."

So Arlene valked across, got da beer at da yeneral store, den valked back home across da lake. Ven she got home and gave Max his beer, she asked him, "Max, you alvays tell me not to run up da tab at da store. Vhy didn't you yust give me da money?"

It was winter in Wisconsin that drove my great grandparents to Kansas. After a couple of family members had pneumonia two years in a row, the doc said, "If you want them to survive another winter, you'll move south." Kansas was about as far south as you could go without being in the Confederacy.

Acclimatization is a big part of how you take the cold. What seems cold in late November feels like a nice day in late February because you're more used to it. That said, by January I'm counting the days to spring, and by the end of February I'm really ready for it to be over.

I always like to go up to my brothers house during the winter and complain about the weather. He always pulls out the only photograph he was ever able to take with out becoming to confused by the difficulty of operating a camera. It's a photo from a disposable camera of the thermometer at -51 degrees fahrenheit. I always love telling him it's fake because he gets all huffed up and starts arguing that he went out and nearly froze his n___ (oh heck we're all friends her I can just say it) he nearly froze his nose off. And I believe him but I'm not going to tell him. The day he took the photo it was a lot warmer here. I think our temp was down in the -40's that day. And then as they say the bottom fell out of the thermometer. Then about a week later it was above 30 degrees fahrenheit. That's a temperature change of over 70 degrees and it was still cold outside. Then in the summer there's always a couple really nice days that get up around 100 to 104 degrees and 114% humidity (that humidity might be a little bit of an exaggeration) And like the man said, I can always put more clothes on to be warm but I can only take so many off and be arrested just so many times and cool off just so much.